Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect Read Free

Turkey, close to the northwestern border with Syria.
    During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in August, Syrian Muslim insurgents in Antakya weren't supposed to eat or even drink water during the day. Instead, they stayed up all night so they could eat—and even drink alcohol. That pretty much describes the role of religion for some armed groups participating in the Syrian uprising. Some of the insurgents are ultraconservative Islamists. But many of the Free Syrian Army guerrillas grow beards, pray five times a day, and observe Ramadan—not out of religious conviction, but in order to appearpious. To get funding from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, groups must appeal to religious sensibilities.
    To the pious go the guns.
    While the United States claimed to be promoting moderate, secular rebels, in fact the strongest groups held rightist, Islamic views. In part that's because Saudi Arabia had been supplying arms to both the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and rebel groups that follow an ultra-right, Islamist ideology. Groups such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) wanted religion to play the leading role in government, claimed their holy book should be the basis of the legal system, held other religions in contempt, and opposed women's rights. In short, their ideology was similar to ultraright groups in the United States and Europe, except they carry out activities in the name of Islam, not Christianity.
    Meanwhile, the CIA had posted agents along the Turkish–Syrian border to check on which militias would receive arms from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The CIA later poured more resources into training selected guerrillas in Jordan. The FSA rebels have to appear superpious to the Saudis but as moderate Islamists to the CIA. It's not easy being a Syrian insurgent these days.
    I met one such chameleon group. This FSA brigade of 150 men is called Ahrar Syria (Free People of Syria). It is only one of many dozens of groups loosely affiliated with the FSA. When I interviewed them at two in the morning, eight men crowded into a sparsely furnished living room, tapping on laptops and answering e-mails on smartphones. Ahrar Syria even has its own Facebook page.
    As brigade leader, Abdul Salman nervously pulled on newly minted facial hair; he told me they grew beards in order to look more religious. Members of Ahrar and other armed opposition groups are angry at the United States for not giving them enough backing. “We haven't gotten any arms from the United States,” Salman complained. “If we had arms, Assad would have fallen by now.” He also favored establishing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria as the United States and NATO did in Libya. 3
    At the same time, Ahrar and other opposition groups strongly oppose US policy in the region. They want the return of Syria's Golan, seized by Israel in the 1967 war. They support Palestinian rights and oppose US aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    Syria's uprising will impact the entire Middle East. But the United States faces a major contradiction. Many Syrians in the opposition want Washington to offer stronger support for their cause, yet their plans for Syria's future diverge significantly from US strategic goals. 4
    The Washington debate about Syria is strangely detached from the reality on the ground. Doves favor tough economic sanctions and arming “moderate” insurgents. Hawks advocate sending even more arms to guerrillas accompanied by US military bombing. Syrian opposition leaders I met said those differences are only tactical. Both hawks and doves want to replace Bashar al-Assad with a pro-US strongman. “The Americans haven't supported the revolution strongly enough because they are still looking for someone who can ensure their interests in the future,” Omar Mushaweh told me. 5 He was a leader of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood living in Istanbul.
    While US officials helped create opposition coalitions, ordinary